WW2 GERMAN SS M16 STALHELM TRANSITIONAL HELMET

This is a very nice SS M16 Transitional helmet, the helmet has its original liner in tact with its chin strap, the helmet is marked inside with the SS runes and the RZM makers eithers side, the helmet does have some dents at the top but it doesn't take it away from the rare helmet it is.

1932 was a bad time to need a helmet, and Himmler required a lot of them for his expanding SS units. At that moment, the German Reichswehr were still reliant on surplus WWI vintage M16 and M18 helmets. The Reichswehr (the German military) had barely enough helmets for their own use due to the restrictions the Treaty of Versailles placed on Germany in the prior decade. Had they wanted to share helmets with the SS (and they didnt), Hitler was still a year from coming into power so the SS would have to look elsewhere for their needs. To cover the immediate short fall in 1932, helmets were drawn from old Freikorps as well as existing Nazi stocks.

After the Nazis came to power 1933, the SS would undergo rapid expansion and more helmets would be required. The SS supply officers would look abroad, and purchased surplus WWI era M17 Austrian helmets from Czechoslovakia and Austria, as the helmet design was virtually identical to the German Great War pattern. One wonders if the Czechs had a crystal ball, would they have been so willing to deal with the SS.

These helmets were reconditioned to SS specification by painting them black with a brush or pneumatic paint gun directly over the old WWI or 1920s era factory paint.

Code: 800